


Six Flowers, Seven Gazes, Eight Friends

by EtchCantrellorLightningHeterodyne



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Because I love TAZ Raven Queen but Critrole Raven Queen can go fuck herself, First chapter is just Vax getting whumped to fuck by Hotis, Hurt Vax, Hurt/Comfort, Last chapter will be a Vaxlethmore wedding, These people deserve to be happy, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25198417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EtchCantrellorLightningHeterodyne/pseuds/EtchCantrellorLightningHeterodyne
Summary: A different take on Vax's meeting with Hotis, and how everything changes from there (aka fuck canon they get to be happy).
Relationships: Shaun Gilmore/Keyleth/Vax'ildan
Comments: 7
Kudos: 63





	Six Flowers, Seven Gazes, Eight Friends

Vax is standing on the balcony, and just as his confusion shifts into adrenaline fueled terror, just as he makes the connection and starts to move-

Pain.

A knife buried hilt deep just below his chest, and he gasps, and it comes out wet, and Vax tries to breathe and he can't, he can't, he can't breathe around the knife in his chest and he can't breathe around the blood trickling into his lungs, he can't, he can't- there's no- no oxygen, just gasps that come out with more and more blood, and Hotis says something and Vax can't hear it, can't hear anything, as the world blackens around him like so much charred wood, like his village, like his mother, like his family will because he was a fool.

And then-

He breathes, one sharp, awful, wrenching gasp, shoving air into his lungs by no blessing of any benevolent god. Because Hotis is still there, still standing, an empty bottle in his hand and a smug smile on his face and Vax can taste the remnant of a healing potion on his lips but it's no potion he's had before. It's not meant to heal you, it's meant to hurt you so you can hurt more, and it BURNS, in the wound, down his throat, until he swears there are flames licking up the inside of his ribs, but he can breathe. He can breathe.

Vax can breathe, flat on his back on this stupid  _ fucking _ balcony, with his hand pressed into the blood gushing stab wound in his side, and at first, he's shouting "JENGA!" Into the earring, and then...

Nobody comes. 

Nobody comes for him, and the calls get weaker and weaker and he can't tell if it's blood loss or abandonment, but the last time he says it it's more of a sob than a word and maybe, maybe they're all too far away, but there's a far greater part of him saying that they've seen their chance and taken it, left him alone up here, because Vex has Percy and Scanlan and Grog have Pike and Keyleth has all of them and he was always the seventh wheel.

Hotis smiles, something that would've been kind on anyone else's face and was a mockery of affection on his.

"You are so unusually tempting for a mortal."

Vax's ears go flat. He can breathe, and now he can think. The wound is there but it's not as deep, and the knife is not there, but Hotis wouldn't stop, he wouldn't chat, not unless he had something planned (so Vax just needs to plan faster, right?)

"Truly, if I hadn't such a grudge, I may have offered you a deal.”

He can breathe, but he sure as hell can't move, and his limbs won't respond, he can't-

Vax's back arches, one agonized scream tearing itself out of his throat, and Hotis chuckles, leans harder on Vax's now-shattered wrist, puts more weight on- on not bones, not even bones, just fragments, just like the little charcoal fragments he'd picked through every house to find-

-but Hotis is talking again.

"Your friends are not coming. We both know that."

Vax might agree with him, but he's not about to say it out loud.

Hotis smiles, like an indulgent parent to the child asking for one more cookie.

Vax screams again, he can't help it, as the knife is shoved hilt deep into his thigh, and he can't stop it. Can't stop the screams. Can't stop the tears. Can't stop the sobs. The cries. The  _ pain _ .

"Your friends. Are not coming. So why do you call them as such, little starling? Why do you give them your reverence?"

Vax's brain finally sees fit to register that he's shaking, that the saltwater dripping down his cheeks has started to soak his hair, that his throat is very displeased at his not-a-choice of volume.

Hotis doesn't even twist the knife, he just twitches it, but it's enough for Vax to flinch.

"I'm waiting on an answer, little starling."

Vax opens his mouth, to say... To say what? Fuck off? They're my family? I love them and they stuck around longer than I ever thought they would?

He expects another stab wound, another broken bone, but he gets... Nothing. Nothing but Hotis, sitting and waiting, crouched next to Vax's prone body and staring at him for all the world like a patient friend waiting for you to figure out you're in love with someone.

"I- th- they- they're just too- too far away- t- to hear m- me."

And he's not sure what he expected after that, but it sure as hell wasn't Hotis giving him the most pitying look he's ever seen.

"Oh, little starling," Hotis begins. "We both saw your sister asleep far less than five hundred feet away. Should I go on? Tell you how the tinkerer isn't asleep at all, and the goliath saw us walking here? How the gnomes were both with him, and the druid was sleeping next to that bear? They have heard you, little starling. They have chosen not to listen."

Vax's stomach plummets, and it's not even because of what Hotis said.

In all the thoroughness it would have taken to gain that knowledge, he never mentioned Gilmore. Not once, when Gilmore was the only person in the world who could have exposed his schemes before they ever got this far, and now Vax is bleeding out on a balcony and his family-

His family isn’t coming.

Vax feels the fragile little thing inside him that had told him, every day of his life, that he wouldn't be abandoned by his family (should he call them that? Really? Because family didn't leave family, and they might have been his family, but he clearly wasn't theirs).

He'd felt that fragile little thing every day since he'd met his father, felt it grow and change and get stronger and stronger, to the point where a week ago Vax wouldn't have even called it fragile anymore.

And now, staring into endlessly pitying yellow eyes, Vax finally feels it break. 

(Screams echo on stone. They carry through air. If they haven't heard him now then they're never going to at all, as Vax finally realizes that there's nothing he ever could have done).

Hotis must have seen it, when something in Vax crumpled, because the rakshasaa sighs. Yanks the knife from Vax's thigh. Mutters something the half-elf won't pretend to understand as the wounds close, all of them, as Vax's wrist fixes itself and flesh knits back together.

Hotis stands, and when he does, he pulls Vax to his feet as well.

"But it's as I said, little starling."

Vax doesn't know where this is going, and he finds that he doesn't care. They left him. They  _ left _ him. 

Hotis smiles, as Vax stares into space with his lips pressed tight and his eyes simmering in hurt and rage and grief.

"You are so very tempting. Especially for a mortal."

He's expecting it this time, but the scream still comes, still tears out of his throat, when Hotis drives the knife in between his shoulder blades.

_ Oh, _ Vax thinks.  _ Whatever paralytic he used wore off. That's why. _

He falls to his knees as the knife is wrenched free, gasps another too-wet breath when it slots between his ribs, curls over in on himself clutching at the gash in his stomach, and Vax can feel the tears flowing freely again, and he's not even sure they stopped. 

He can't- he can't breathe again. He can't breathe. There's blood gushing out of his abdomen, dripping red red red between his fingers, running too fast, too freely down his back, and if he doesn't die from all the wounds then he'll surely drown in the blood pooling in his lungs.

Oh, but he was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid, for letting his guard down around anyone, anyone at all, and now he knew his family never cared, now he was going to die on a balcony because he couldn't even scheme fast enough to save himself, let alone them, let alone Gilmore-

Gilmore. Oh, dear gods, what had Hotis done to Gilmore?

Now, now when Vax is thrown flat on his back, he doesn't scream, he can't, he can't get enough air in his lungs, not enough to stay alive, not enough to call for help that wasn't coming anyway, it just hurts so fucking much and he can't breathe, he can't move, he can't think and it just hurts, hurts, it  _ hurts _ , there are tears, dripping down, down, down, mixing with the pool of blood underneath him that's growing too fast, too fast to survive to breathe to think hurts HURTS-

Vax takes one breath around the blood in his lungs.

He doesn't have room in them to take another.

He does anyway. Because fuck Hotis, fuck Hotis and everything he stood for, fuck it all because he'd never been loved anyway.

Vax coughs, blood splattering lips and teeth and tongue, gasps, gasps one more breath, just one more breath-

Something explodes in his swimming vision. Bright, pretty and purple and pure, like everything he'd never had to begin with, like Scanlan who'd deserved better and Gilmore who he'd never see again, and Vax's vision is darkening once more.

Charred. Charred and burnt and broken like so many little bones. Purple light like his dearest friends, a sky so dark like Percy's coat, and scattered with too many stars to ever count like Pike and her goddess and her love like the sun. Vision blackening like Grog's tattoos, like Vex's hair, and the aftermath of Keyleth’s flames.

Vax takes another breath, one more, just one more, just to prove that fucking devil wrong if nothing else because he didn't get to be right, not after this, not after Gil, not after anything.

"-BREATHING!"

Vax closes his eyes when he hears Scanlan's voice. He's not sure why Hotis picked  _ now _ to shapeshift into one of his…

One of his...

Before he can think the word, before he can say anything ranging from friend to enemy (and wasn't it sad that both descriptors were equally stupid, because they implied Vox Machina cared at all), there is something washing over him, just enough to heal.

Just enough to bring the pain back, and Vax gasps and chokes and coughs around the holes slashed gods knew how deep into his body, around the blood, around the tears running freely again and it hurt, it  _ hurt _ , and fuck it all, hadn't Hotis had  _ enough _ !?

The magic comes back, different, weaker, like whoever it is is mustering this from reserves they don't have, just enough for Vax to see, to notice, to breathe-

He can  _ breathe _ .

He can breathe, and there are hands in his hair, stroking and combing and soothing because Vax was too desperate to not be alone for it to be anything else.

His head is raised. Pillowed, on something soft and silky and expensive and doubtlessly bloodstained by now.

One of the hands in his hair moves, brushing a thumb along his cheekbones, wiping the tears away with so much tenderness that Vax would cry if he still could.

"Shhh- shh, shh, it's going to be fine, Vax- we're here, we're right here, we've got you. I promise we've got you."

Gilmore's voice is full of unshed tears, and Vax finally musters the energy to open his eyes.

Gilmore stares down at him, eyes glistening in the low light. It's his lap that Vax's head is resting on, his hands stroking gently through his hair, and there- there is Scanlan, screaming with a rage Vax has never seen, not on Grog, on Vex, on anyone, and Vax can feel it in his bones. His rage isn't righteous, doesn't bother with such petty niceties because you hurt my fucking family and I don't care what I have to do to make you pay YOU WILL PAY-

Vax blinks, and remembers that he can breathe around the blood that isn't in his lungs, and around Scanlan's rage so potent he isn't even singing, isn't saying anything, he just  _ screams _ .

(That, Vax thinks, is going to leave his throat in a shit state).

Pike is there, crouched next to him. She's crying openly, and Vax can see from the exhaustion in her eyes that the magic healing him was hers. She’s holding his hand, like he's fragile and she'll crush him (again. Vax can feel it now, the bruises that Hotis' hell magic didn't heal, ringing the wrist of the hand Pike is holding like a baby bird).

Keyleth is settled on his other side, hands settled on his arm so lightly it takes Vax a moment to even notice, like she'll disturb something sacred if she presses any harder. 

And Gilmore- Gilmore who is  _ alive _ , alive and right there, with his hands running so slowly, so softly through Vax's hair, never pulling even once, not even on the snarls Vax knows are still there, Gilmore who is whispering in Vax’s ears that everything’s going to be okay as he brushes away the tears, again and again and again.

He can't see the others. But he hears them, hears Scanlan screaming like a god razing civilization to the ground, hears Grog bellowing like a thunder louder than even Vax's mind, hears gunshots and nothing else from Percy, because Percy went quiet, tense as steel and so, so quiet, when he was too angry to feel kind.

Vax hears Trinket, roaring louder that he's ever been.

And he hears Vex.

She is so far past livid.

She's not screaming, not quiet, no, she's promising. Promise after promise slips into Vax's ears in Vex's voice, and he knows that these are promises, because she doesn't threaten anyone with things this horrible unless she fully intends to follow through.

For a moment, Vax wants to sit up, to see that they're there, that they came, that they  _ care _ -

But he sees Pike, who poured magic she didn't even  _ have _ into his body, Pike who's cradling his hand in both of hers like it'll break the moment she tears her eyes from Vax's face.

Keyleth, who isn't looking at him, she's looking down, at her hands placed so lightly on his arm like it would only take the weight of a ball bearing and not an anthropomorphic devil tiger to break his bones. 

Gilmore, fingers tracing Vax's features, brushing back the tears that are still- STILL- coming, not as light as Keyleth or as worried as Pike, but something distinct and fond and  _ him _ .

Vax is starting to think that everything he holds dear can be found in just seven people's eyes.

"...he drugged us," Keyleth whispers, so quiet Vax almost misses it.

"He drugged us and we couldn't- we couldn't move. We couldn't move at all but we- we could hear everything-" and if Keyleth wasn't crying before she definitely is now.

Vax's heart breaks. Again.

"I'm not sure how you got it into your head that you're the kind of person it's possible to abandon, my bird, but my deeply wounded heart that flatly refuses to alter it's affections protests greatly against that notion," Gilmore said, and Vax isn't sure if Gil knows that's going to make him feel worse.

It hurts. It still hurts fucking everywhere.

Once more, Vax doesn't have any expectations at all about the next moment, and they manage to be dashed anyway.

"Wait," Keyleth says. "You're in love with him too?"

"...I'm not sure it's possible not to be."

"That's... So accurate."

Pike isn't about to cry anymore, though, so... that's... something.

Is it good? Is anything good now that they know, they all  _ know _ how weak his faith in them is?

"Regardless of the fact that I'm horribly in love with you, why in the name of all the gods would you think so little of yourself?" Gilmore says, and Vax can't answer, he doesn't know how, so the tears just flow faster as he tries and fails to stop his face from crumpling.

"We-" Vex says, as she saunters over "-are going to get you some self esteem. The kind that's too good to put on sale."

Vax huffs, the shadow of a ghost of a laugh, because it feels like the only thing he can do.

But Gil leans in a little closer, and Pike holds his hand a little tighter, and Keyleth grips his arm with the adorably awkward gentleness only she could ever manage, and Vex grabs his other hand and Percy rubs Vax's shin and Scanlan squeezes his shoulder, and Grog pats his thigh so gently it won't even bruise, and Vax feels almost too loved to take it, and he does anyway.

Because fuck Hotis and everything he stood for. Fuck it all, Vax was loved.


End file.
